2nd October 2020

 Many years ago and long before White Water Rafting was one of the ‘extreme experiences’ offered to tourists,  I had a dare-devil friend, Bruce,  who offered to take me down the Clutha River.  No, that’s not a euphemism and I was a respectable married lady anyway.

 

He owned an inflatable dinghy which I think he’d bought 4^th hand from  a Surf Lifesaving buddy, with more patches than an Amish quilt.   That’s the inflatable, not the buddy (although knowing Bruce's mates one can never be sure) and he assured my reluctant self that he’d ‘gone down the Clutha’ many times and it was an experience not to be missed.

I’ve seen people on the telly saying the same thing and often they’re talking about ‘amazing opportunities’ such as having a live tarantula crawl across your face.

 

 

‘I promise you it’ll be life changing,’  Bruce told us.  

And what exactly would life be change into? As far as I could see, there was only one option and I didn’t want to choose it.

Nevertheless, we arranged to meet old Brucie, my husband and I,  at his landing stage. 

The husband was raring to go and as excited as a puppy as we drove to Balclutha.

 

Looking  down from the road at the raging river in the gorge beneath us, I had serious second, third and fourth thoughts but the husband assured me Bruce had everything in hand and all the necessary safety gear; we’d be perfectly all right.

 Now to me, having safety gear is an ominous thing. You only need safety gear if you’re going to put yourself in danger.   

You don’t need safety gear when you stroll to the shops,  or when Auntie comes to tea (well, actually with my Aunties you do but that’s another story).

 It’s only when you are doing something potentially life threatening you need safety equipment.

 

 

Balcluha is in Otago, on New Zealand’s South Island, the name is from Scots Gaelic Baile Cluaidh - ‘Town on the Clyde’ and James McNeill from Dumfriesshire, named it and is regarded as the founding father.

 

And this little morsel of knowledge would have been fine, even comforting had I not read, on the way to what my stomach was increasingly convincing me was my doom, that the Maori name for the place, Iwikatea, meant ’Place of Bleached Bones.’

 

True, it related to a battle which took place in 1750, leaving many dead but I felt I was also on the way to a battle, with raging, unforgivingly fatal water which would wash my bones up on some distant shore, many years later.

 

‘What are you worried about?’ asked the husband as we merrily bowled along, ‘you can swim.’

‘So could many passengers on the Titantic,’ I replied trying to keep the note of panic from my voice.

We got to the landing stage and Bruce, grinning up from his orange inflatable asked, ‘Ready for the experience of a lifetime?’

Somehow that too sounded worrying, lifetimes are finite.

 The husband leaped into the boat with gay abandon and both men turned to assist me but stubborn feminist as I was in those days, I waved away their hands.

 I’d taken the precaution of wearing jeans and trainers and was about to climb, in somewhat ungainly fashion onto the rubbery side when a jet boat, common on the Clutha then as now, whizzed by sending a huge wave towards us.

 This hit the boat just as I had one foot in and the other on the bank.

The boat lifted, moved away from the shore and I fell into 8ft of icy cold water.

 

As I bubbled to the surface I swore that if either man had even the ghost of a smile on his face, it really would become the place of bones.

 ‘Do you want to give it a miss?’ Bruce asked as I sat, dripping on the transom.    He was visibly disappointed as was the husband.

I knew that during the course of our devil run down the Clutha, we’d be getting wet anyway, which is why we’d brought waterproofs with us.

I just hadn’t anticipated the water being on the inside of the coat.

 It was an omen I was sure but that stubborn side of me which I prefer to call tenacious and independent, prevailed and we set off on what turned out to be a wholly exhilarating and wonderful experience.

True, I was gripping the safety lines every single moment of the mad flight into rushing rapids and was wearing a life jacket which almost strangled me but it was the sheer exuberance and speed of our careering flight which took my breath away as trees and banks flashed by faster than the eye could see.

 Despite all the trepidation and mishaps which preceded it, I laughed and shouted with sheer joy throughout the entire mad journey and when we emerged from the maelstrom into calm water, was keen to do it all again.   

And did.